Modern day linguistics has seen the arrival of many different viewpoints of language. Beginning with Noam Chomsky, unquestionably one of the most influential figures in recent linguistics, new theories and ideas have been introduced at a rapid rate. In part due to his status as a revitalizer in the field, but also due to his often controversial theories, Chomsky maintains a place at the center of this discussion. His search for a universal grammar and criticism of pure descriptivism have informed generations of research. Much of this has been reactionary against him, but his influence can not be discounted. His theories of a universal grammar have inspired writers on both sides of the debate. Paul Hopper argues against this view, positing his own emergent grammar in contrast. Dell Hymes later writes, arguing to attempt to transcend the traditional concept of grammars altogether. Because of the influence Chomsky has had, it can be enlightening to trace the development of modern linguistics through its criticism of him.
Before examining Chomsky's own theories, it is useful to consider the prevailing scholarly views of linguistics before his writings, descriptivism. The goal of descriptive linguistics is to describe, in great detail, every aspect of a given language. This description takes place on many levels: at the phonemic level, the morphemic level, the syntactic level, and occasionally further. Thus, they are categorizing the sounds of a language and the meaning of those sounds. What differentiates descriptivists from many later schools of thought, is that this is where descriptivists stop. They do not pursue a more general theory of language past an individual basis; English is distinct from Chinese, and while later research...
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By reading these arguments in light of Chomsky's position, we can not only gain a better understanding of his work and influence, but also the entire linguistic scene, as well as the implications of each author's work. Despite their sometimes reactionary viewpoints, common themes do emerge across many of the essays. The truth may lie somewhere in these commonalities, or one faction may be vindicated, but Chomsky's impact can be seen either way.
Works Cited
Chomsky, Noam. “The Current Scene in Linguistics: Present Directions”. College English 27.8 (1966): 587-595. Print.
Hopper, Paul. “Emergent Grammar”. Berkeley Linguistics Society 13 (1987): Print.
Hymes, Dell. "Ways of Speaking." Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking (Studies in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Language). 2 ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. 433-451. Print.
ABSTRACT: In what follows, I give (following Burton Dreben) a dialectical reading of his dismissal of metaphysics and of Wittgenstein's objections to Russell in 1913. I argue that Wittgenstein must be read as advocating no particular theory or doctrine — that is, philosophy is an activity and not a body of truths. Furthermore, this insistence is thoroughgoing. Put differently, a dialectical reading must be applied to one's own thought and talk. Characteristically, this sort of dialectical philosophy begins with the question, Is there any definiteness to what I am doing in my own thinking and speaking? Such a question undercuts the easy assumption that what we are doing may be expressed in a body of meaningful statements. In particular, I argue that Wittgenstein does not advocate any particular theory of language. A common reading of Wittgenstein is that he aims to prevent us from misusing language. This view assumes that, for Wittgenstein, the notion of a correct, acceptable or meaningful use of language may be taken for granted. In my view, Wittgenstein does not take the notions of use of language and grammar and its misuse for granted. For Wittgenstein grammar underdetermines what it is to use or misuse language. I argue that an ethical critique is implicit in Wittgenstein's objections to any attempt to speak a priori about language and thought.
Pages 261- 267. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2011.10.006. Cameron, D. (2001). The 'Case Working with spoken discourse and communication. London: Thousand Oaks & Co. Carson, C., & Cupach, W. (2000).
Williams claims that errors of grammar and usage are the most complex topics, which have been easily misunderstood by many people in our world today. Whether the grammar has to do specifically with literature or not, it has always obtained errors. William notably supports his claim by giving specific examples of professionals who have stated grammatical errors according to what they think is “right.” William also provided some personal experience and textual evidence to express credibility and accuracy of his argument. William’s argument is effective because the main points he focused on with evidence were powerful and stood out to the audience. The real life examples that William demonstrated to the audience gave a strong base to his argument because he showed how grammar errors actually exist in our society. He made it evident that the audience had their eyes opened to topic that had been ignored in the past. William achieved his argument by providing real life situations and by looking at various researches that analyzed the existence of errors in grammar. However, the ways that William could have made his argument more effective is by not having comments that seemed too self- indulgencing. Also he could have taken out evidence like the graphs that didn’t make
Imagine comparing a person to a language. It would be so tricky and overwhelming: finding grammatical structures that would fit into a person’s personality, verb tenses related to life experiences etc. However, there are two main things which make a person and a language highly comparable: form and content. What are form and content? How are they related to each other? In his essay “Devoid of Content”, scholar Stanley Fish argues that when considering a language, we should leave content outside and just focus on form, because form eventually leads to content. David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, in “How to Write (the Perfect) Email”, point out the importance of form as it leads to a better content in writing emails. But is it really only about form? How many things do we know that only rely on form as a key to content? Although Fish, Shipley and Schwalbe put emphasis on form as a way to content, Gogol, the main character of Jumpha Lahiri’s novel The Namesake, shows that a person can never be “devoid of content” or a “perfect grammatical” structure because form and content are indeed equivalent and they reflect that person’s identity. Gogol actually swims across a medium of overlapping forms and contents which define his life and sense of belonging.
Wright, Katy M. “The Role of Dialect Representation in Speaking from the Margins: “The Lesson” of Toni Cade Bambara.” Style. 42.1 (2008): 73-87. Proquest. SEMO Kent Lib., Cape Girardeau, MO. 12 April 2009. .
Lakoff and Johnson propose that the language we use affects the way we think and the way we think affects the language we use. I am reminded of the old saying: "As a man thinkith, so is he.S To illustrate, the metaphor of argument as war is used. If I think of argument as war then my instincts will be directed towards winning that war. Kill or be killed. I defend my claims against others and attack the opponent's weak points trying to shoot down any counter-arguments hurled at me. The adrenaline is pumping. The objective is no longer expression, but survival. Signs consistent with the metaphor will be recognized and others will be ignored.
Text linguistics is a “discipline which analyses the linguistic regularities and constitutive features of texts” (Bussmann, 1996: 1190). According to this definition, text linguistics is mainly concerned with studying the features that every piece of writing should have in order to be considered as a text. It is also defined by Noth (1977 in Al-Massri, 2013:33) as “the branch of linguistics in which the methods of linguistic analysis are extended to the level of text.” This means that text linguistics aims at producing rules and methods that can be used to analyze the whole text. This approach has been put forward by the two scholars Robert-Alain de Beaugrande and Wolfgang U. Dressler in their seminal book “Introduction to Text Linguistics”, in 1981. The study of texts in linguistic studies starts in
The analysis of Chomsky’s argument in Christiansen & Chater’s (2008) article suggests that there may be an innate universal grammar (UG), meaning that humans are born with the biological ability obtain...
Next, we shall evaluate the key features of language which are; communicative, arbitrary, structured, generative, and dynamic. Communicative, language can allow one to interact with another. According to Willingham (2007), the bond found with the elements in language and what they mean is arbitrary. The way language is set up shows how the symbols are not arbitrary. The set up language shows precisely how intricate it can be. Generative, one is able to build countless number of meanings from words. Dynamic, language never stays the same, therefore it can be known as sporadic. According to Willingham (2007), changes are being made all the time as new words get added and as the ways of grammar change. These elements can be quite critical when it comes to language.
Wodak, R. (2006). Critical linguistics and critical discourse analysis in Verschueren, J. and Östman, J. (eds) Handbook of Pragmatics John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam.
Chomsky, N. (2000). Knowledge of language: Its mature, origin and use. In R. J. Stainton (Ed.), Perspectives in the philosophy of language: A concise anthology (pp. 3-44). Peterborough: Broadview Press.
When grammar is put to use in a society, people will often have different beliefs at what is the "right" or "proper" usage. This had led to the formation of two widely accepted forms of grammar, Prescriptivism and Descriptivism. These forms will often separate those who believe their form of grammar is the only correct way from those who use many forms they find to be acceptable. Descriptive grammar is formed by analyzing how speakers use a language, and deducing the rules they follow. Linguists create descriptive grammars in order to understand language more deeply. They understand that a single language can have multiple dialects, and that each dialect will have its own grammatical rules--internally
Still today, it is the commonly held belief that children acquire their mother tongue through imitation of the parents, caregivers or the people in their environment. Linguists too had the same conviction until 1957, when a then relatively unknown man, A. Noam Chomsky, propounded his theory that the capacity to acquire language is in fact innate. This revolutionized the study of language acquisition, and after a brief period of controversy upon the publication of his book, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, in 1964, his theories are now generally accepted as largely true. As a consequence, he was responsible for the emergence of a new field during the 1960s, Developmental Psycholinguistics, which deals with children’s first language acquisition. He was not the first to question our hitherto mute acceptance of a debatable concept – long before, Plato wondered how children could possibly acquire so complex a skill as language with so little experience of life. Experiments have clearly identified an ability to discern syntactical nuances in very young infants, although they are still at the pre-linguistic stage. Children of three, however, are able to manipulate very complicated syntactical sentences, although they are unable to tie their own shoelaces, for example. Indeed, language is not a skill such as many others, like learning to drive or perform mathematical operations – it cannot be taught as such in these early stages. Rather, it is the acquisition of language which fascinates linguists today, and how it is possible. Noam Chomsky turned the world’s eyes to this enigmatic question at a time when it was assumed to have a deceptively simple explanation.
This study is limited to study only one kind of speech acts, namely, the speech act of offering. The researcher will examine the different types and strategies used by the Jordanian Arabic spoken language only. Other Arabic dialects and languages are not investigated.
As the global communities migrate from their native home lands to new countries and regions, the need to learn a new language becomes an imminent requirement. Learning second language for an individual with not back ground to the language can be a serious proposition which can results in seriously straining the individual. This makes it very important to select a learning strategy very carefully to prevent complicating the learning process and also one which will help speed up the entire learning process (Bitchener 2007). With this in mind there are three main approaches linked to learning a 2nd language namely the behaviourist, Halliday’s and Chomsky’s approaches. Each of these adopts different learning theories but that all promote